The encounter thus detailed was a small affair in itself, but important in its effects. It was the first gleam of success in the campaign, and revived the spirits of the army. Washington sought to turn it to the greatest advantage. In his general orders, he skilfully distributed praise and censure. The troops under Leitch were thanked for being the first to advance upon the enemy; and the New England troops for gallantly supporting them, and their conduct was honorably contrasted with that of the recreant troops at Kip’s Bay. Of Knowlton, who had fallen while gloriously fighting, he spoke as “one who would have done honor to any country.” The name of Leitch was given by him for the next day’s parole. That brave officer died of his wounds on the 1st of October, soothed in his last moments by that recompense so dear to a soldier’s heart, the encomium of a beloved commander. In the dead of the night, on the 20th September, a great light was beheld by the picket guards, looming up from behind the hills in the direction of the city. It continued throughout the night, and was at times so strong that the heavens in that direction appeared to them, they said, as if in flames. At daybreak huge columns of smoke were still rising. It was evident there had been a great conflagration in New York. In the course of the morning Captain Montresor, aide-de-camp to General Howe, came out with a flag, bearing a letter to Washington on the subject of an exchange of prisoners. According to Montresor’s account a great part of the city had been burnt down, and as the night was extremely windy, the whole might have been so, but for the exertions of the officers and men of the British army. He implied it to be the act of American incendiaries, several of whom, he informed Colonel Reed, had been caught in the fact and instantly shot. General Howe, in his private correspondence, makes the same assertion, and says they were detected, and killed on the spot by the enraged troops in garrison. Enraged troops, with weapons in their hands, are not apt, in a time of confusion and alarm, to be correct judges of fact, or dispensers of justice. The act was always disclaimed by the Americans, and it is certain their commanders knew nothing bout it. We have shown that the destruction of the city was at one time discussed in a council of war as a measure of policy, but never adopted, and was expressly forbidden by Congress.